I went on and bought a few of the tracks from the album of Buddy Holly covers released this summer, called Rave On Buddy Holly, even though I really don’t get that excited about Buddy Holly. You see, I needed to buy the tracks to burn them to cd, because that is the shiny technology that my car stereo can translate into sounds. And my car is my daily concert. This is the best track on Rave On, the one by the Black Keys, called “Dearest.”

Notice that earlier I said I BOUGHT tracks. I am wondering how much longer I’ll be doing that. I have a Spotify account that I’m pretty happy with, and I can listen instantly to a majority of the stuff I would buy these days. It’s changing my music-buying habits. I’m spending less per month, but hearing more. I’m personally cherishing the revolution that’s happened in the availability of music with this Internet thing catching on.

In one year, the paragraph I just wrote will sound dated. In a hundred years, it will be anthropological.

Here’s an example of a very effective hook, circa 1987, from LL Cool J.

Me and my tennis homies rocked this one at tennis camp in Murray, KY in 1987…

A MEMORY: Dave S. got in trouble for hitting a car with a tennis ball from an insane distance. Dave pointed to the red sports car he was aiming for, down the road, anticipating where it would be when it was in range. He was living in a fairy tale. We were quite a distance from the road, over a hundred yards. He swung at the ball like a ninja, apparently calculating for wind, the speed of the car, and the rotation of the Earth. We watched the ball sailing. We watched the car driving. It must have taken 10 seconds to reach its target. The ball tagged the car hard enough to dent the driver-side door. The sound hit our ears delayed it was so far away, but we were already running.

It was so awesome. An unbelievable act of adolescent impulse, athletic skill, and blind chance.

We tried to act innocent, but the authorities rooted Dave out with ruthless tactics. He couldn’t stand the coaches holding all the campers hostage from practicing. The driver had seen kids running toward the dorms. So Dave did the noble thing, impressive for a 14-year-old, and confessed the crime so we could get back to hitting tennis balls, inside the protection of the fence.

I think it is ironic (I’m not certain) that the coaches had no idea what an amazing athletic feat Dave had performed that day by nailing that car from that distance. Andre Agassi could have tried 100 times and failed to hit the car once.

It was a miracle.

Dave’s dad had to pay for the car repairs, but other than that, I’m totally glad this miracle happened and that I was a witness.

Oliver Nelson had a plain name and an ornate soul. He played, arranged, composed, played, breathed, and woke up most every morning between his birth on June 4th, 1932 and his ceasing to be on October 28th in the year of our Lord 19 and 75.